November 23, 2003
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Ellen MacArthur
Ellen MacArthur: Taking on the World: A Sailor’s Extraordinary Solo Race Around the Globe Wow, what an inspirational book. Ellen MacArthur became obsessed with sailing as a young kid, going out for once-a-year trips on her aunt’s sailboat, and proceeded to save her lunch money for eight years to buy her first boat at the age of 15. She has eaten, drunk, and slept (when she can) nothing but boats ever since, and in 2000, at the age of 24 and standing only 5′ 2″, she competed in the Vendee Globe, a single-handed sailing race down the Atlantic to the wild Southern Ocean, around the world dodging monster waves and Antarctic icebergs, then back up the Atlantic again to France, more than three months at sea alone without stopping — and she came in second place, only about 200 miles behind the first-place winner. Her determination and drive, and her utterly unshakable, fierce passion for being out on the water permeates this book (which was not ghost-written, incidentally), making it a riveting read. At times she does still sound a bit like an excited kid; at others, she can be a bit too reserved in her descriptions of key emotional confrontations — but it’s clearly her personality coming through. And the demands and challenges and sheer EXHAUSTION of steering a 60-foot yacht across the wildest ocean in the world, catnapping when she can before making a sail change or checking the weather reports or needing to climb the over-90-foot mast YET AGAIN to fix something, are simply astounding. I don’t know how she does it — and this has been a fantastic book to read as a new boat owner myself, looking forward to learning to sail solo myself some day! When I do, Ellen will definitely be in the back on my mind.
